One Man, Two Guvnors: British Farce Lumbers onto Lyric Stage.
Photo: Mark S. Howard
Boston’s Lyric Stage opened its fortieth season with One Man, Two Guvnors, the 2011 British adaptation of Carlo Goldoni’s eighteenth-century A Servant of Two Masters. Like Goldoni’s play, which contemporized the commedia dell’arte, writer Richard Bean and composer-lyricist Grant Olding updated Servant of Two Masters to 1963 when the working-class Beatles were gaining world-wide popularity as class discrimination flourished in the UK.
While the basic plot and characters of One Man, Two Guvnors stick fairly close to Goldoni’s convoluted scenario, the comedy finds some of its cultural roots in the English music hall. This is particularly notable in the appearance of Francis, the comic servant (Neal A. Casey), dressed in the kind of natty, yet tacky outfit worn by British music hall comics.
Equally reminiscent of the music hall are the song and dance routines, woven into the show, accompanied by a live band, seated on a stage-left platform. Olding’s tunes draw on skiffle, American-sounding folk and country music, popular in 1950s Britain, and still hanging around in 1963. (The Beatles had begun their career as a skiffle band.) Although surprising to the unsuspecting ear, the music, played on improvised instruments – such as washboards – as well as percussion, electric keyboard, and strings, is a lot of bouncy fun. The performers seem to enjoy it as much as the audience, throwing themselves energetically into their numbers.
Richard Bean wrote a lot of funny lines, but at times, a joke falls flat because of cultural references, confusing to an American audience. There is a lot of room built into the play for clowning and other kinds of physical humor, but although Neal A. Casey works hard at it, he does not have the kind of acrobatic skills that would lift this production into wild farce. He is at his best when he engages with members of the audience in mostly improvised scenes. In British music hall style, he teases, wheedles, and insults them, arousing shocked laughter. At the performance I attended he got a woman to share her lunch with him and then threw her sandwich away because it didn’t suit the character’s taste.
Aimee Doherty delivers a smooth performance as Dolly, Francis’s buxom love interest. Her brief and clever monologue about Margaret Thatcher’s rightist politics is one of the production’s highlights. John Davin is a waggish Alfie, a doddering old man who keeps taking pratfalls. And McCaela Donovan is charming in the trousers role of Rachel.
Tyler Kinney’s stylish costumes for the women and younger males bring back the early 60s with verve. The older male characters are clad in somewhat out of date outfits that reveal their eccentricities. Set designer Matthew Whiton makes good use out of the Lyric’s limited thrust stage, turning it from living room to pub to dance floor with minimum changes. The attractive upstage blue wall, trimmed with white, has two center doors, which play a farcical role. Between the doors is a picture of a young Queen Elizabeth, the subject matter for a joke.
On the whole, the directing was serviceable, though the play lagged on occasion, especially in the first scenes. However, the pace picked up throughout the performance. But, perhaps the director could have explored shtick and slapstick humor more thoroughly.
The Lyric Stage Production of One Man, Two Guvnors
Director ….. Spiro Veloudos
Set….. Matthew Whiton
Costumes ….. Tyler Kinney
Lighting ….. Scott Clyve
Cast
Dale Place ….. Charlie “The Duck” Clench
Tiffany Chen ….. Pauline Clench
Larry Coen ….. Harry Dangle
Alejandro Simoes ….. Alan
Aimee Doherty ….. Dolly
Davron S. Monroe ….. Lloyd Boateng
Neil A. Casey ….. Francis
McCaela Donovan ….. Rachel Crabbe
Dan Whelton ….. Stanley Stubbers
Harry McEnerny V ….. Gareth
John Davin ….. Alfie
Chuong Pham ….. Barman
James Blaszko ….. Policeman
(Through Oct. 12)